Managing Their Reactions

Have you ever been in a conversation or a conflict in which the other person became emotional or uncentered? How did you manage their strong ki, especially if it was directed at you?

It takes courage to engage in conflict conversations. Regardless of how centered and purposeful you are, confronting a problem (especially a problem that's been avoided for a while) can be upsetting.

When there is big ki coming toward you in the form of words, gestures, voice tone, volume, or unspoken (hidden) ki, you will need to manager your own reaction first.

In aikido on the mat, my partner and I give and receive energy through blending movements, touch, and intention.

Off the mat, you can use movement, words, and attitude to help you:

• Build a willingness to confront difficult moments,
• Take care of yourself in the process, and
• Handle whatever may come as a result.

Movement
When strong language or emotion is coming toward you, move. Literally step or turn sideways. Imagine you can see the oncoming verbal and emotional energy moving past you as you watch it, fascinated and curious.

Words
Ask a Question. Let your partner talk until they run out of steam, while you center yourself. If you can't think of a question, here are some generic phrases that may work:

• "This seems important. Can you say more?"
• "What specifically is it about this (subject topic, issue, problem) that is most frustrating (annoying, troublesome, upsetting)?"

Attitude
Our attitude is the first line of inner self-defense. Remember that your partner's reaction is really not about you. It is about how he/she sees the situation from their lens on the world, from their story, so ...

Jump into Discovery
Decide to be fascinated with what they're telling you instead of hurt, angry, or any other way of being that limits you.

In General
Whether you choose to bring up a tough topic or the conversation is brought to you, receive your partner's ki with awareness and purpose, and turn what feels like an attack into useful energy. You have more power than you think.

Creating Resilience

My friend and colleague, Sandy Davis, who lives in the northern reaches of the state of Maine, coaches people how to be resilient. He has a simple, effective formula that includes spending fifteen minutes a day in three different practices: a centering practice; an aerobic practice; and a creative practice. According to Sandy, along with some other basics like eating and sleeping well, if you consistently practice fifteen minutes in each of the three areas, you will develop and sustain a resilient mind, body and spirit.

I don't have difficulty with the centering or the aerobic practices, but I've always known that of the three resilience practices, my creative practice is the one I am most prone to let fall by the wayside.

While I am very creative in my work life, Sandy says that being creative at work (writing articles and creating workshops, for example) is not the same thing as a separate creative practice, like weaving, painting, or writing poetry. By the same token, if you are a poet and make your living that way, you would need a different creative practice that takes you out of the work arena.

Singing is my true creative practice, and sadly, I am not consistent.

In the past month, however, I've needed to sing nearly every day in preparation for a concert that took place last Friday (7/25/08). As I practiced and rehearsed by myself and with my trio, I noticed that my energy was higher, my spirits lighter, and my attitude happier – not just during rehearsals but all the time. And this increased resilience seemed to radiate out into other domains of life. Singing always buoys me, but the songs I sang in this concert were particularly uplifting: “On A Wonderful Day Like Today,” “Put On A Happy Face,” and “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah” to name a few.

This experience was a needed reminder of the benefits of a separate creative practice and has inspired me to sing at least fifteen minutes a day. How hard can that be?! What has kept me from it in the past is the interior dialogue: “I don’t have time to practice; it takes too long to warm up and get ready to sing,” -- stuff like that. What I noticed this time is that the warm-up IS singing and is fun. So ...

I will sing fifteen minutes a day. Promise to myself.

If you want to learn more about creating resilience, visit Sandy's Web site: www.homecomingcoaching.com

Now, if it's your centering practice you want to reinvigorate, join Judy Warner, Ellen Stapenhorst, and me at Tom Crum's Journey to Center program Sept. 8-12, in the high reaches of the Colorado Rocky Mountains. This is how I re-center myself every year.

Learn more and register for Journey to Center at: www.AikiWorks.com.

Hope to see you in September,
Judy Ringer

Posture

I spent four days last week at an aikido seminar with my Japanese sensei (instructor). I learned much on technique, as usual, but also had an interesting realization. It was a sweltering weekend in Philadelphia, where the seminar was held ,with daily highs in the 90s. One evening I decided to sit out a class and climbed up to the bleachers above the practice floor. From there I could observe our Sensei and the senior instructors circling on the practice mat, offering suggestions to students.

In many cases, the correction offered was to the student’s posture. When I was practicing myself, my sensei came over one time simply to correct my posture (which was wilting under the heat). There was a very simple message – you will be able to throw more correctly if you change your posture.

The goal of the corrections was a more coordinated mind/body posture, whether static or in motion. With the improved posture, the student was stronger and able to execute a throw with less effort. Concurrently with the change in the physical body was a calmer, more aware mind, which also contributed to the effectiveness of the throw.

The beauty of this teaching is that it is easily applied in daily life. At any time during your day, you can pause and correct your posture. In doing so, you will be coordinating mind and body. As you continue with your work or play, you will be more effective. Over the years, I have developed a practice of checking my posture often. The result has been a gradual overall improvement in my posture and a welcome feeling of settling or grounding when I do take a deep breath and realign my physical body. In fact, resettling into a more correct posture has become almost an unconscious choice.

Give it a try for a few days. Let us know what happens.

Judy Warner

Pots, Pots, Pots

During a trip to Alleppey, India, I visited many families living on the shores of the Arabian Sea in thatched palm huts. The huts were small and dark, with sand floors and no windows. Typically there was little inside — mats to sleep on, a heap of clothes, a few schoolbooks, some religious mementos, and very little food. But, there were always tin pots. Lots of them.

I was curious. I asked one woman, “What are all these pots for?” It turns out they are used for just about anything. Some are for collecting water: others for cooking, some for preparing food for the goat, others for washing clothes. Pots are important in Alleppey. During the day, an Indian will pick up a pot many times.

If I lived in Alleppey, pots would make a great centering support for me. Everytime I picked up a pot, I would center.

Do you have a “pot” in your life? Something you use often that can be a reminder for you to center. A computer? A set of keys? A favorite pen? A tool? The more often you choose to center, the easier it will be to center when you really need it.

Judy Warner

When all else is crazy....

Today, in fact this whole week, has been a fast flow of things to do. The sort of time when it is most important to remember to breathe. (That must be why one of my themes in aikido last night was pay attention to your breath, and what happens when you hold it - we teach what we wish to learn and remember.) So, writing for the blog this week has been a background thought. And, Judy and Ellen seem to be in the same place as no posts have surfaced from them either. It must be the alignment of the planets.

But, then, when all else fails, look in your inbox. Alia Crum, whom I am sure I have mentioned is a Ph.D. student at Yale, is developing the wonderful habit of sharing articles that she comes across that may be of interest to me. Since part of Ali's life right now is to study and research (sounds heavenly, doesn't it?!), she is accessing all sorts of great info.

Today she shared a post from the Yale School of Management on Integrated Leadership. The opening paragraph immediately caught my eye:

General George S. Patton dressed in all the regalia of a four-star general, complete with a chest full of metals and a Colt-45 sidearm with a monogrammed pearl handle. Mahatma Gandhi wore a simple cotton garment he spun himself and walked hundreds of miles to gather salt. Martin Luther King Jr. stood before hundreds of thousands of people and proclaimed a vision of justice that continues to resonate four decades later. And Steve Jobs debuted a computer named after a piece of fruit and challenged the forces of corporate darkness.

....the website page goes on to describe a course at Yale where students study these figures to better understand the kind of leadership necessary to operate large organizations, where executives never meet most of those affected by their decisions. I found the discussion a stimulating comparison of the leaders plus there are links to summaries of other weeks in the course being discussed.

Here is the link for your enjoyment.

A Quick Exercise in Creativity

Twyla Tharp, the famous choreographer, wrote a wonderful book called The Creative Habit which was published in 2003. I recently ran across it in my bookcase. It is a book filled with suggestions and processes for getting the creative juices flowing in your being presented against the backdrop of her fascinating career. Whether you are a writer, painter, choreographer, teacher, or manager, Twyla’s book can help you start to think outside that infamous box for solutions to your conflicts.

One exercise is so simple I have to mention it. Take a handful of coins and toss them on a table. Then work with the pattern made by the coins. Keep moving the coins around until you feel as sense of completion, congruity, satisfaction. It doesn’t matter whether you will use the design you just completed in a project. You have just allowed yourself to observe a situation and create a possible resolution. Simply stated, you have gotten yourself into a creative mode. Now, move on to the nagging problem you have been avoiding all week!

One more suggestion – as you turn your attention to that chronic conflict, remember to take a few deep breaths, stretch your body a bit, and then smile. That too will help get the creative juices flowing.

Judy Warner

Resolution

What supports you in being centered? A piece of music, a special place, reflecting on your purpose, or simply taking a few deep breaths? We all have activities, words, or visualizations that bring us to center.

Resolve on your birthdate, each month, to create time for an activity out of the ordinary which centers you — calling an old friend, visiting a museum, a visit to a spa. Whatever you choose, savor the experience and appreciate that nurturing yourself is a part of being centered.

For every man the world is as fresh as it was at the first day, and as full of untold novelties for him who has the eyes to see them.
Thomas Huxley

Inner Freedom

"We hold these truths to be self-evident."
--Thomas Jefferson

Every July 4, we celebrate Independence Day in the U.S., commemorate our struggle to free ourselves from tyranny, and celebrate victory in the quest for Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. We remember the freedoms we normally take for granted and we appreciate our responsibility to honor, maintain, and clarify those freedoms every day.

Mostly these freedoms are associated with rights - the right to free speech, for example, or to worship freely, assemble peaceably, petition the government, and to due process of law.

I gratefully acknowledge these privileges and freedoms and, frankly, would do well to recognize them more often. And every July–every day actually–I think about other freedoms perhaps not mentioned in the Bill of Rights, but freedoms nonetheless; freedoms I don't actually practice as much as I might.

I'm thinking of inner freedoms, quality of life options that have less to do with restraints by others and more to do with how I limit myself. These include but are (definitely) not confined to the freedom ...

To choose my attitude, even when I have no choice over the circumstances
To decide not to take things personally
To talk things out in difficult situations instead of holding back
To laugh when everything around me seems to be falling apart
To breathe
To smile
To center
To be curious
To see the good in people
To appreciate and be present in this moment
To live life purposefully and intentionally
To notice that I am, in fact, freer than I think I am to create meaning in my life

The United States Declaration of Independence is an amazing document.

What if we could use it as a template to create an inner declaration that frees us from self-imposed tyrannies, such as prejudice, arrogance, blame, and justification? A personal set of self-evident truths that protect us from our self-imposed limits–the shackles that cause us to struggle so and bring stress to those we love and work with everyday?

Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of aikido, said aikido is the art of peace, a way to practice freedom through compassion, wisdom, and fearlessness. If we use this definition, how free are you? And what holds you back?

Stop a moment. Breathe, center, smile, and return to freedom, the freedom that is always at your disposal and that only you can restrict.

--Judy Ringer

Change Your Questions

It started out as an error. I was searching for a book by Marshall Goldsmith and failed to notice that while he had written the introduction for Change Your Questions, Change Your Life Marilee Adams was the author of the book. But, nothing happens without a reason. And, those of you who have following this blog since its inception are aware of my love of good questions. So, it came as no surprise to me when I discovered my error that I had unconsciously chosen a book whose title was a natural for me.

Change Your Questions, Change Your Life is written as a fable. It makes for entertaining reading but, once again, as with Patrick Lencioni’s book which I discussed last week, the teachings are invaluable.

In the opening chapters Marilee writes that ‘the ability to intentionally shift our internal questions puts us in charge of our own thoughts.’ While following a fictitious manager who has been failing miserably in his job and his marriage as he is coached, Marilee teaches her model of asking questions in a simple, straightforward way. At the end she presents the model in its totality so the reader can begin to apply in his or her own life.

One of my favorite parts is a list of Learner vs. Judger Questions. While a judger may ask questions such as “What’s wrong?" “Who’s to blame?” or "How can I protect my turf?” a learner asks questions such as “What works?" "What are the facts?" and "What’s the big picture?" The entire concept of Learner vs Judger complements Tom Crum’s Discovery Model, introduced in The Magic of Conflict. Tom writes about the significance of a shift from ‘having to be right’ into a discovering mode. The two books, Magic of Conflict and Change Your Questions, Change Your Life, together make a great guide.

If you are looking for a quick read this summer whose teachings will apply well past the fall, I encourage you to pick up a copy of Change Your Questions, Change Your Life as well as The Magic of Conflict.

Judy Warner